All the same pieces were in place in 2019 Atlanta Millionaires Club, An album as glacially paced and melancholic as this. But there's a brighter glow to the songs, a looser grip on where they go and how they work, more room for band and orchestration. “In a Good Way” takes a minute-and-a-half walk in the middle to simmer into a '90s nu-soul groove. the title track doesn't even have a chorus. “Kind Of” ends with a three-minute vamp with the exact vibe of a Key West bar band playing a bossa nova tune at sunset. Webster nods to fellow Atlanta Rich Homie Quan, singing on the chorus feeling some way, but, again, taking out a little “kind” as insurance. It's a wordless, scary, almost unbelievable song about falling in love, and it still stretches out like it never wants that feeling to end.
Webster is a killer who comes out of the shadows with something extremely funny or downright devastating. And since this album comes prepackaged with a hammock and warm breeze, it's hard to do anything but smile when she delivers the beat. On the title track, Webster talks to her partner about his beautiful sister in that tender but condescending way couples talk about each other's siblings. “I made her laugh once at dinner,” he sings. “She said I'm funny and then I thanked her/But I know I'm funny haha.” You see the full spectrum of her personality in this line – kind, sensitive, sassy, really funny – especially in the staccato way she sings “haha”. She elevates a memorable phrase we all type all the time into a moment that defines her character as a songwriter.
There is, in fact, a lot of crying on the record. There's one good cry (“In a good way”), but for the most part, it's rough. She cries so much it hurts, she wonders if she will stop crying for once, she cries for no reason, she thinks she can just sit and cry. None of these lines are sad in themselves, but they create the vulnerable atmosphere for Webster to detail the absurd magnitude of her grief: “There's a difference between lonely and lonely/But I'm both all the time,” she sings. always the grammarian. But Webster's great gift as a young jam saint is how she captures the void. She absolutely owns the void that swallows up all emotion, that nothingness through which all emotion must travel. A line from “A Stranger” says it all: “You know, I used to love to be bored/But now, without you, I've got so much time to think that there's nothing left to think about.”
from our partners at https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/faye-webster-i-know-im-funny-haha/